NEWS BRIEFS

Police say at least 12 masked gunmen opened fire inside a restaurant in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing eight.

CUIDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO Masked gunmen kill 8 in border-city restaurant

Police say at least 12 masked gunmen opened fire inside a restaurant in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing eight.

The gunmen arrived at the seafood restaurant Friday evening in three cars, approached a group of people and opened fire, said Alejandro Pariente, spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutor's office.

Pariente said no arrests have been made.

The attack comes days after police found the bodies of seven men who were killed on a school soccer field in an upscale neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

CHICAGO Abstinence teachers wed, kissing for first time at altar

Won't kiss on the first date? How about waiting until marriage?

Chicagoans Melody LaLuz and Claudaniel Fabien shared their first kiss yesterday at the altar. The two teach abstinence at the city's public schools and practiced what they preached to their teenage students.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the couple had never kissed and that they had never been alone together in a house.

A friend of LaLuz said wedding guests cheered and stomped during the two-minute smooch between the

28-year-old bride and 30-year-old groom.

LaLuz and Fabien said they have no worries about how they will spend their honeymoon in the Bahamas.

Venezuela's state news agency says three days of joint naval exercises with Russia will kick off in Venezuelan waters Monday.

The state-run Bolivarian News Agency says the operation involving 11 Venezuelan and four Russian ships has been christened Venrus 2008.

Yesterday's report said exercises will include anti-aircraft defense and tactics to combat terrorism and drug trafficking. Some will involve helicopters and planes.

The exercises are widely seen as a demonstration of Kremlin anger about aid delivered by U.S. warships to Georgia after clashes this summer with Russia. Russian officials deny that.

MARKLE, IND. Deer jumping from overpass crashes into trucker's cab

Police in Indiana say five deer that wandered onto a highway overpass jumped to their deaths on I-69, one of them crashing through a tractor-trailer's windshield.

Indiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman John Salb said the deer might have been spooked by cars as they were crossing the overpass Friday. They fell 20 to 30 feet onto the highway.

Police say the driver of the tractor-trailer was not injured.

RIO DE JANEIRO Group wants viewing of child porn to be criminalized

The viewing and procurement of child pornography, including online images of the sexual abuse of children, should be made illegal in all nations, according to a declaration issued at an international congress in Rio de Janeiro.

The declaration, worked out at the third World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents, states that viewing and obtaining such material should be criminalized like its production, distribution and possession. It also says that explicit comic strips and cartoons should be regulated.